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Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

As I recall he once turned Walt Frazier into his personal whipping boy to the tune of 68 points.

As hall of famers go, Maravich may be the most underrated. He was widely resented in the 70's and I think that kept him from getting the same just due that guys like Connie Hawkins and Earl monroe did.

It wasn't about being the team everyone loved, it was about beating the teams everyone else loved.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

Pistol Pete was perhaps the biggest loser in basketball history. People talk about Marbury, Francis, and Baron Davis. They've got nothing on Pistol Pete. First of all, his legendary college career was made legendary by the fact that he made sure to go to the college where his own father was the head coach, LSU. Of course daddy is gonna let him shoot it as many times as he wants to, which led to his amazingly bloated college scoring numbers. We'll just forget the fact that he never once led LSU to the NCAA Tournament. You'd think the "best" player in college basketball history by himself would be good enough to at least lead his team to a lower seed. Nope. The "greatest" college basketball player of all-time didn't even go #1 overall in the draft, he goes #3 behind Bob Lanier (Pistons) and Rudy Tomjanovich (Rockets). Then comes his NBA career, no more daddy around to let him have his way, so of course his scoring goes way down but the losing continues....

I'm not even gonna consider his final season, when he played 17 games with the Boston Celtics.

Career: 314-424 (.425)

What a winner that Pistol Pete! Wait, no he wasn't. His own teammates said he was a loser. But who cares about wins and losses, he had floppy socks and did neat tricks! Floppy socks and neat tricks are what basketball is all about!*

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

So...does that mean Jordan isn't the greatest player ever, since he didn't get drafted #1 either?

And it's foolish to imply that it was somehow easy to get into the NCAA tournament back in Maravich's day, compared to now. If you didn't win your conference, you couldn't get in. And no, he should not have been expected to beat Kentucky all by himself.

I sense a lot of jealousy and envy, but hey that's just me.

You want to say he wasn't a winner? Fine, albeit he never had the talent around him to win. But to imply that he wasn't one of the best guards ever to play the game is irresponsible and ignorant. His game spoke for itself. He was as offensively gifted as any guard in NBA history.

As for his teammates hating him, they resented his contract, which wasn't his fault.

But yeah, the only reason why he averaged 44ppg in college is because his dad was the coach. Of course, how did I not figure out it was that simple. All you need to do to score 40+ppg is to have a green light to shoot. It's not as if you have to play against a defense, or anything...

It wasn't about being the team everyone loved, it was about beating the teams everyone else loved.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

So...does that mean Jordan isn't the greatest player ever, since he didn't get drafted #1 either?

This is an ignorant statement on your part. I clearly used the fact that for his entire career he was a me-first, me-second, me-third, team-fourth loser as to why he's so massively overrated. Pointing out that was taken #3 was used only to show you that not all teams were fooled by his stat-padded college career.

And it's foolish to imply that it was somehow easy to get into the NCAA tournament back in Maravich's day, compared to now. If you didn't win your conference, you couldn't get in. And no, he should not have been expected to beat Kentucky all by himself.

There were 23-25 teams in the NCAA Tournament during Pete's college career. There were more than enough open spots for non-great teams to make it in. Of course, LSU was never even really close to making the tournament and were around .500 for most of Pete's time there.

You want to say he wasn't a winner? Fine, albeit he never had the talent around him to win. But to imply that he wasn't one of the best guards ever to play the game is irresponsible and ignorant. His game spoke for itself. He was as offensively gifted as any guard in NBA history.

Overall, taking into account his selfish mentality and unrivaled apathy towards winning, no he wasn't that good. He was a black hole who was all about promoting himself over the well being of his teams. I don't care how gifted he was, that aforementioned fact makes it all for naught. Basketball isn't all about physical skills, just ask Stephon Marbury or Steve Francis or of course Ron Artest (btw - all 3 are already bigger winners than Pistol Pete ever was)

As for his teammates hating him, they resented his contract, which wasn't his fault.

Yeah that could be it....or.....they resented the fact that he'd rather pretend he was playing in the circus than playing an actual basketball game where the goal is to win, not see how many "ohhs & ahhs!" .you can get from the crowd.

But yeah, the only reason why he averaged 44ppg in college is because his dad was the coach. Of course, how did I not figure out it was that simple. All you need to do to score 40+ppg is to have a green light to shoot. It's not as if you have to play against a defense, or anything...

To discard the fact that his father gave him the green light to put up an unheard of number of shots per game is simply goofy, and you know it. And yes, any reasonably talented basketball player can put up big scoring numbers if they're taking half their teams shots, as Pistol Pete did. He shot sub-par FG%'s against sub-par college defenses his entire career. That's not that impressive.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

There were 23-25 teams in the NCAA Tournament during Pete's college career. There were more than enough open spots for non-great teams to make it in.

You obviously don't know much about the history of the NCAA tournament. You had to WIN your conference to make it in, period, prior to 1975.

THERE WERE NO AT-LARGE TEAMS AT ALL.

If you were a top 5 team in the country but if you finished behind ANY other conference opponent, you went to the NIT or went home. The 20+ teams were champions of the then 20+ conferences (before conference mega-mergers) and about 15 of them were podunks.

Under the rules of that day were in place now, this season only one Big Ten team between Ohio State and Wisconsin would even make the field.

Yes, there were times when top 5 teams failed to make the tournament because of this. In the ACC in particular, they have always had a conference tournament and some great teams stayed home.

In 1973-1974, IU shared the Big Ten Title with Michigan and were a top 10 team. They barely lost a one-game playoff two days after the regular season ended to Michigan and missed the NCAA. They played in and won a short-lived tournament featuring second-place teams from all of the conferences, the CCA. This tournament disbanded the next year, when the NCAA finally allowed at-large teams.

Of course today almost as often as not the overall NCAA champion was not a conference champion.

You are right that he didn't win much. In those days LSU's basketball program had roughly the stature of Penn State's or Northwestern's hoops programs today. That is, nobody paid any attention to them since they were always an easy win and never got any decent recruits outside of a 20 mile radius surrounding Baton Rouge. He was then drafted onto badly run and perennial-losing NBA teams. At the very end he became a Celtic. Unfortunately his knees were shot and they did not then have the surgical techniques to help him keep playing.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

This is an ignorant statement on your part. I clearly used the fact that for his entire career he was a me-first, me-second, me-third, team-fourth loser as to why he's so massively overrated. Pointing out that was taken #3 was used only to show you that not all teams were fooled by his stat-padded college career.

There were 23-25 teams in the NCAA Tournament during Pete's college career. There were more than enough open spots for non-great teams to make it in. Of course, LSU was never even really close to making the tournament and were around .500 for most of Pete's time there.

Yes, of all the players in NBA history, I've chosen the goofy looking skinny guy who was a career loser and died almost 20 years ago to be envious of.

Overall, taking into account his selfish mentality and unrivaled apathy towards winning, no he wasn't that good. He was a black hole who was all about promoting himself over the well being of his teams. I don't care how gifted he was, that aforementioned fact makes it all for naught. Basketball isn't all about physical skills, just ask Stephon Marbury or Steve Francis or of course Ron Artest (btw - all 3 are already bigger winners than Pistol Pete ever was)

Yeah that could be it....or.....they resented the fact that he'd rather pretend he was playing in the circus than playing an actual basketball game where the goal is to win, not see how many "ohhs & ahhs!" .you can get from the crowd.

To discard the fact that his father gave him the green light to put up an unheard of number of shots per game is simply goofy, and you know it. And yes, any reasonably talented basketball player can put up big scoring numbers if they're taking half their teams shots, as Pistol Pete did. He shot sub-par FG%'s against sub-par college defenses his entire career. That's not that impressive.

quoteBasketball isn't all about physical skills,

I suppose this is the reason that players like Steve Alford or Damon B. or any number of IU players never made an imprint in the NBA. Come on, the NBA is all about physical skills, without them, players will not even get a toe in the door. Why the hate for Pistol Pete? He worked as hard as any player in basketball to hone his skills and to make it to the big stage. I don't think that today's NBA stars would actually sleep with a basketball and carry it everywhere, like Pete did. I find your critizism of Pete misguided.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

To put "Pistol Pete" in perspective: One of the premier guards and ballhandlers of all time, Isiah Thomas, said that Pete was the best ballhandler in all of baketball, period. He was an absolute magician with the ball.

Sure he didn't win much in college or the pros but he did more for the NBA then most players who won much more. He was the innovator of many moves plus, the no-look pass, the cross-over dribble, the behind the back pass, etc. (Actually Cousy was the originator of some of these passes but he was a robot compared to Pete).

He never was surrounded with much talent so he was the SHOW. Very few players ever probably put in as many hours in the gym as he.

I didn't care for him in college because he did shoot a lot because of his dad but I learned to appreciate his skills in the NBA even if he wasn't on a lot of winning teams.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

You obviously don't know much about the history of the NCAA tournament. You had to WIN your conference to make it in, period, prior to 1975.

THERE WERE NO AT-LARGE TEAMS AT ALL.

If you were a top 5 team in the country but if you finished behind ANY other conference opponent, you went to the NIT or went home. The 20+ teams were champions of the then 20+ conferences (before conference mega-mergers) and about 15 of them were podunks.

Under the rules of that day were in place now, this season only one Big Ten team between Ohio State and Wisconsin would even make the field.

Yes, there were times when top 5 teams failed to make the tournament because of this. In the ACC in particular, they have always had a conference tournament and some great teams stayed home.

In 1973-1974, IU shared the Big Ten Title with Michigan and were a top 10 team. They barely lost a one-game playoff two days after the regular season ended to Michigan and missed the NCAA. They played in and won a short-lived tournament featuring second-place teams from all of the conferences, the CCA. This tournament disbanded the next year, when the NCAA finally allowed at-large teams.

Of course today almost as often as not the overall NCAA champion was not a conference champion.

You are right that he didn't win much. In those days LSU's basketball program had roughly the stature of Penn State's or Northwestern's hoops programs today. That is, nobody paid any attention to them since they were always an easy win and never got any decent recruits outside of a 20 mile radius surrounding Baton Rouge. He was then drafted onto badly run and perennial-losing NBA teams. At the very end he became a Celtic. Unfortunately his knees were shot and they did not then have the surgical techniques to help him keep playing.

Of course, my memories of Pete are filtered through a kid's mentality, but I was a big fan of Pete. That reminds me, I have a Psitol Pete basketball card hidden in my attic somewhere. I'm going to have to find it and see if ti has any value.

I'm with roferr on this. I, for one, aren't going to respond to what appears to be a well written troll post. Pete was amazing.

Hey! What're you kicking me for? You want me to ask? All right, I'll ask! Ma'am, where do the high school girls hang out in this town?

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

This is an ignorant statement on your part. I clearly used the fact that for his entire career he was a me-first, me-second, me-third, team-fourth loser as to why he's so massively overrated. Pointing out that was taken #3 was used only to show you that not all teams were fooled by his stat-padded college career.

There were 23-25 teams in the NCAA Tournament during Pete's college career. There were more than enough open spots for non-great teams to make it in. Of course, LSU was never even really close to making the tournament and were around .500 for most of Pete's time there.

Yes, of all the players in NBA history, I've chosen the goofy looking skinny guy who was a career loser and died almost 20 years ago to be envious of.

Overall, taking into account his selfish mentality and unrivaled apathy towards winning, no he wasn't that good. He was a black hole who was all about promoting himself over the well being of his teams. I don't care how gifted he was, that aforementioned fact makes it all for naught. Basketball isn't all about physical skills, just ask Stephon Marbury or Steve Francis or of course Ron Artest (btw - all 3 are already bigger winners than Pistol Pete ever was)

Yeah that could be it....or.....they resented the fact that he'd rather pretend he was playing in the circus than playing an actual basketball game where the goal is to win, not see how many "ohhs & ahhs!" .you can get from the crowd.

To discard the fact that his father gave him the green light to put up an unheard of number of shots per game is simply goofy, and you know it. And yes, any reasonably talented basketball player can put up big scoring numbers if they're taking half their teams shots, as Pistol Pete did. He shot sub-par FG%'s against sub-par college defenses his entire career. That's not that impressive.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

I have not seen so many games with Pete, he was very fun to watch tho(especially if u was a fan in that time / era).
He was original, he was the first one with so many tricks, he was ahead of his time with his style and thats about it.......................... nothing more, nothing less.

If you took away his "magic ballhandling skills" then i dont think he would even be remembered today, well not as famous as today. He is/was not underrated or overrated, but only remembered and respected as THE "inventor"... he took a hard job, that job which you would be hated for from your teammates/coaches in that time & era but at the other end being very famous later for pushing the NBA to another level.

Think if there was no guys like Pistol Pete and that basketball would still be the same as in the 60s - 70s, we would today be SHOT for dribbling the ball between the legs in a game?

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

As I recall he once turned Walt Frazier into his personal whipping boy to the tune of 68 points.

As hall of famers go, Maravich may be the most underrated. He was widely resented in the 70's and I think that kept him from getting the same just due that guys like Connie Hawkins and Earl monroe did.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

Regardless of the memories or feelings all of you have towards Pistol Pete, PacersFan83 brings some great points to the table. He was an extremely talented shooter and was important in making basketball as popular as it is now, however if he was in the league today, I think people would be grouping him with the other selfish players who have never won anything and take a lot of shots. No question.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

I remember seeing Maravich play. There was a story about how he was almost Dr Js team mate and went through training camp with him before the NBA said Dr Js rights belonged Milwaukee.

The Hawks defied the league a third time, on September 30, when Erving suited up to play the ABA?s Carolina Cougars in Raleigh, North Carolina. Future basketball legend David Thompson, entering his sophomore year at N.C. State, was in the bleachers at Reynolds Coliseum and looked on in amazement.

?Man, it was insane. Those two just played like they had been teammates forever,? Thompson recalled. ?Pete was awesome. He was everything I had read about and more. He was 6-5 but could handle the ball and was quick, and could jump. People don?t realize how high he could jump. He could shoot anywhere from across the half court line.?

Maravich?s deft passing was particularly impressive to Thompson. He remembered Maravich dribbling hard on a fast break, flanked by Erving and Hudson. At the top of the key, Maravich head faked the Carolina defender, locked both elbows as he looked right but threw left ? a perfect bounce pass to Erving. Pete?s old ?wrist-pass? was still effective.

Erving explained to Friedman, ?I would just grab a rebound, throw it out to Pete, and get on the wing. Pete would always find you. He got his points, but he loved to pass the ball. He could hit you in full stride in a place where you could do something with the ball. That was a measure of his greatness.?

Go read the whole article. I will take DrJs and David Thompssons word on Pete!

"He wanted to get to that money time. Time when the hardware was on the table. That's when Roger was going to show up. So all we needed to do was stay close"Darnell Hillman (Speaking of former teammate Roger Brown)

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

Some of the ignorance from our apparently-younger posters in this thread astonishes me.

Pistol Pete was one of my heros growing up. Of course, my Dad was also one of my coaches through high school and was an "unofficial" member of my college track team's coaching staff, so I related to some of the pressures (and ill-conceived criticisms like the ones above) that Pistol Pete faced every day so I looked to guys like Pete, Alford (back when I respected him, before he made a mockery of coaching while at Manchester), etc. for inspiration. Maybe I'm a bit biased. So be it.

Pistol died at a young age, of a heart attack, while playing ... a pickup game of basketball.

Guys in the NBA today act like they don't even enjoy playing the game; but Pistol couldn't get enough of the game he loved, even with a mangled knee.

Was he selfish, or was he the only decent player on some truly God-awful teams? This wasn't the post-CBS version of the NBA, where the salary cap was finally leveling the playing field and there was plenty of national television exposure to go around.

This was the 1970s version of the NBA, which had numerous problems fielding competitive, drug-free teams and had very restricted free-agency rules. It wasn't Pistol's fault that he played for awful Hawks and New Orleans Jazz teams.

Pistol is a very worthy member of the Hall of Fame.

Keep in mind that if you're going to criticize him for having the green light to shoot in college, that LSU had no other capable offensive scorers, and the defense knew it and played a lot of zones (triangle-two's) or triple-teams just to limit Pete to 45 points per game or so.

Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
And life itself, rushing over me
Life itself, the wind in black elms,
Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

Just for the record, I did not mean to slam Pistol Pete in my posts, I more meant to bring up the question of how he would be viewed today?

He was the Allen Iverson of the 70s in many ways. His style of play made a lot of people angry, like Iverson's tattoos, hairstyle and also style of play. He was a showman, who took a lot of shots and put up incredible stats but never won anything. Would people say what they say about him now if he was in the middle of his career currently instead of during that time? What would people be saying when he was taking almost 30 shots a game for a sub 500 team? Even though he wasn't surrounded with any talent, which is a valid excuse, would that be excused today? AI gets slammed by people on this board and he can use the exact same excuse- and he got his team to the finals.

I don't know the answer to all these questions, I just think its a very interesting thing to think about.

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

Iverson is a great comparison for Pete. But Iverson had a well-coached team that was built around him and he took them to the NBA Finals.

Imagine if Iverson spent his entire career with a roster that resembled this year's Sixers? That might still be better than fate that was given to Pete.

People that actually followed the NBA then (all fifty of them, nationwide) understood what was going on. I'm sure the rest of the casual sports fans in the country might have found things to criticize.

If there were more people paying attention to the NBA then, perhaps Atlanta and New Orleans wouldn't have been able to get away with having such awful franchises. But they (like the Pacers, Cavs, Kansas City, Buffalo, and others) probably made just enough ticket revenue when the big market teams came to town to make it a worthwhile business venture (and pre-salary cap they didn't spend more on payroll because there was no "bang for the buck" - the big market teams were going to win anyway so why waste extra money on payroll?)

This isn't even "your father's NBA". This was "your grandfather's NBA", and it had serious problems that weren't solved until the postive effects of the salary cap began working through the entire league. Remember, at that time basketball lagged so far behind baseball that it was in danger of falling behind hockey into being the nations "#4" sport. Now its a solid #2 and baseball faces that risk.

Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
And life itself, rushing over me
Life itself, the wind in black elms,
Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

Re: Pistol Pete - you guys should have seen him

Man, i just saw that 68 point game of his and it was just
Most ridicilous game, high scoring game and shots ive seen in my life...

Almost all of his baskets he made was 15-25 foot shots, fadeaways, sky-hooks, double pumps shots, left handed shots, throwing shots behind the back over the head and swisch! hiting shots sometimes without even looking at the basket over frasier & over double teams & over tripple teams, dribbling all over the coart and braking ankles of 5 defenders with crossovers, he did great passes, great rebounds, great steals, great blocks, the layups resulted with AND 1 all the time, he then twists his ankle and gets up and scores even more, then he gets fouled out, he made at least 15 shots from 25 feet or so and if there was a 3PT line he would get at least 100.....
And LOL @ young Phil Jackson & Bevetta!

I can go and die now, honestly... there is nothing that can entertain me more after seeing this game. Thank you Pete